


The Dragon's Motive

by Kaggath



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:24:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22550167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaggath/pseuds/Kaggath
Kudos: 2





	The Dragon's Motive

The dragon guarding the princess…it’s an old story. So old, you know how it goes before you really understand it’s going somewhere. Handsome prince comes, slays the dragon, saves the princess, happily ever after, you get it. They tell you this story, and you know how it goes, but never once did they explain the dragon’s motive. To understand that, you have to understand how the princess got there in the first place.

It starts about how you’d expect…don’t worry, you’ll have a familiar launch point. 

_Once upon a time…._

Two of the common folk fell in love. They didn’t have but for the sweat of their brow. It was a hard life, but they had each other. As one of them fell pregnant, they toiled all the more, trying to provide for their new child, and as the baby was born they found their blessing. A healthy baby girl was born into the world, from two parents who through their love and devotion gave the child a supernatural gift. As the baby made her first cries into the blessed night, precious stones fell from her eyes.

Diamonds, pure and sparkling in the dim light, fell from her eyes where tears should have been. Her parents rejoiced. No more would they have to struggle to provide for her, for themselves, for their family. Whenever they needed, whatever they needed, it could be bought with only the smallest fare of a single jeweled tear. 

The couple bought a house, and found they had more to want, but children cry, and the jewels were in plenty. As the child grew, she grew in a home so large she could never fill it. Walls and tapestries climbed up up up, so high, like a reaching hand that sought to pluck down the stars themselves. 

For any want the people around her had, they needed only make her cry and the want was filled. As she grew and grew, she became bitter. From her cold mistrust and resentment, when she fell ill she found that as she woke her tears had crumbled and chilled to coal. As black streaks fell down her face, she laughed. This was her true blessing, to see those around her for who they were, was it not? 

She had grown into a princess in a high castle, royalty in a faraway land. Suitors began to appear, but soon after learning she’d lost the ability to cry the diamonds, they soon lost interest. 

All but one.

He didn’t wish to see her cry, he told her. As a royal son he was to marry, but he really wanted, he said, was to travel and see new lands, new people, new experiences. He hadn’t wanted to come, honestly, it was only to please his father. And yet…he was charmed. He wished to stay, to get to know her. 

Soon the two fell in love, they were to be wed. Not long after, she too fell pregnant and their little family grew. It didn’t matter what their parents thought or wanted, they were in love, right?

As she gave birth to her own child, a princess, her husband once so sweet demanded she cry the diamonds again, or he would take their princess away. Anger burned inside her, and as she screamed fire burst from her mouth. Burning him to ash, she took the princess herself to the highest room of the tallest tower. She had become something monstrous and terrifying, and the people of the castle fled her. 

The fire inside her burned so hot and bright, the coal cooked once more into diamonds, and as the queen dragon took her throne, she vowed never to let her princess hurt as she had. She would protect the princess with her very life, through fangs and fire and claws, against any who would ever dare to try to take her away again.

_The end._


End file.
